Canadian higher education has mainly functioned virtually since March 2020, when campus buildings were closed. The residential population of York University during this pandemic has consisted of students and their families, for whom their campus apartments are their main homes, and international students who could not get home at the end of April, due to […]
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What Trees Talk About features the excellent research of Canadian ecologists
I'm always thrilled when one of my colleagues contacts me, to alert me to their research hitting the mainstream media. On November 26th, 2017, CBC's Nature of Things, which is introduced by Dr. David Suzuki, broadcast an absolutely fabulous documentary on the ecology of Canada's boreal forest: What Trees Talk About. I loved the programme […]
Growing International Ada Lovelace Day in Canada
In October 2017, professional communicator, and designer of #ThatOtherShirt, Elly Zupko, came to Toronto with her family, to give the 3rd International Ada Lovelace Day Lecture (see her great talk above). International Ada Lovelace Day is one of several initiatives, such as Soapbox Science, founded by women in the last 10 years, with the aim […]
Biology Graduate Students Bring the Bioblitz to YorkU
My friend and colleague, Guelph professor, Dr. Shoshanah Jacobs (left, with her new son) invited me to give a guest talk in her first year Biology course: Discovering Biodiversity. I introduced the bioblitz concept in my talk, and encouraged students to join in with one, or to even organize a bioblitz of their own. The general […]
Science, Art, Policy and Politics at the United Nations Climate Change Meetings
I'll be posting 12 blogs between December 1st and 24th to reach my goal of 24 posts for 2017. I'm behind because my sabbatical has kept me too busy to maintain my blogging schedule! Back in 2009, when I was director of the Institute for Research and Innovation in Sustainability (IRIS), I applied for York […]
New Indigenous People & Plants Trail at Royal Botanic Gardens, Hamilton
The new Indigenous People and Plants Trail at the Royal Botanical Gardens, Hamilton, Ontario, opens to the public on Monday 18th September 2017. The trail, located in Cootes Paradise, teaches us about how plants were used by the Anishinaabe people. I found a great journal article about Anishnaabe ethnobotany in NW Ontario, by Davidson-Hunt, Jack, Mandamin & […]
In defence of sabbaticals
The 2017-18 Canadian academic school year has begun, and I kicked it off by creating a rather ruthless-sounding auto-reply. Paid sabbaticals, every 7 years, are a huge privilege that allow tenured professors to expand our research skills and knowledge. We're paid a reduced salary to "boldly go where no-one has gone before", or at least do some of […]
From university professor to University Professor
At last week's York University convocation for the Faculty of Science and Lassonde Engineering School, I was made University Professor. That's me with the Dean of Science, Dr. Ray Jawawardhana. But, I'm already a university professor, so what does this mean? University Professor is an honorific title that exists at many North American universities, including University of Toronto […]
Gardening for biodiversity & local food in Carolinian Canada
Two excellent Canadian documentaries, The End of Suburbia (2004) and Escape from Suburbia (2007), discuss the enormous implications of our unsustainable North American car culture, which has spawned sprawling suburbs and gridlock in southwestern Ontario, and the Greater Toronto Area. These films include fascinating conversations with "futurists" about how people will convert their (sub)urban lawns into vegetable patches to grow local […]
More public science: appearing on the ZDF series, Infestation!
I doubted that much could top discovering that my 2013 Skype chat about plant defences got me a movie credit in a science fiction feature film! But, you never can tell where science outreach and engagement will take you. Just a few weeks after hearing about my Botanical Consultant film credit, some of my other Public Science led to just as unexpected an […]
